Winners of the 2016 NaNoWriMo Story Bundle Giveaway and Questions Answered

Thank you everyone who participated in the 2016 NaNoWriMo Story Bundle Giveaway. We have our winners, and as part of the entries, I received two interesting questions to answer, which I have included below.

The Winners Are

Eleanor L.
Julie R.
Tara T.
Yve L.

They have all been sent their prize codes. If your name is on the list but you have not heard from me, send a note using my website contact form and listing the same email you provided for the giveaway, and I will attempt a resend. The email will come from this website.

As to the 2016 NaNoWriMo Story Bundle, it will be available for purchase today and tomorrow (3/21) only, so don’t miss out. I just finished another of the bundle books, Warrior Mage. It is an adrenaline rush practically the whole way through, peopled with earnest and dedicated main characters fighting their way past human and other barriers while they attempt to unravel a mystery lost to the distance of time. I had great fun with the read and so can you. To learn more about this book and the others in the bundle, go to StoryBundle.com

Now for the questions. I hope you enjoy the answers as much as I enjoyed writing them. Each made me think.

Which of the books in this giveaway bundle is your favourite?

As you might expect, this is a very difficult question. I have not finished reading all the books in the bundle, and of course cannot speak to mine without bias, but so far, Free Wrench has to be my favorite as much as I enjoyed the others. This is, in part, due to the reader 50% rule as the hard-working, creative character of Nita strikes a chord with the younger me who used to take apart broken clocks to see if I could repair them.

Steampunk novels have really resonated with girls ages 13-16. What do you think explains this particular fanbase?

I can’t speak for every girl, but I can tell you I fell in love with the genre before it was even considered a genre. My reasoning is simple (and I suspect can be generalized to most young female readers). Despite all the efforts to remove bias against girls in mechanics and science, it’s still there to varying degrees, perpetuated by those who grew up in different times. With steampunk, there seems to be no lack of female characters who are mechanically inclined and scientifically creative. It speaks to the need to explore the world and do things with our hands, which touches the tomboys among us, and yet at the same time, the steampunk aesthetic in many novels also reaches the girls who want to dress up, wear fancy and interesting things, and imagine themselves in flowing dresses with skirts that swirl. In my experience, the two drives are not mutually exclusive and yet are generally treated as two ends of a spectrum. This is not true within the bounds of most steampunk where the beauty of the Victorian Era is blended with greasy elbows and shiny gears, bringing the two halves together in fascinating and intriguing ways.